“I ask thy favour. Mistress Ragnor is in the right-hand parlour. I will look after thy cloak.”
“It will be well for thee to do that.”
Then Adam went to the right-hand parlour and found Rahal sitting by the fire sewing.
“I am glad to see thee, Rahal,” he said.
“I am glad to see thee always––more at this time than at any other.”
“Well, that is good, but why at this time more than at any other?”
“The town is depressed; business goes on, but 34 in a silent fashion. There is no social pleasure––surely the reason is known to thee!”
“So it is, and the reason is good. When people are confessing their sins, and asking pardon for the same, they cannot feel it to be a cheerful entertainment; and, as thou observed, it affects even their business, which I myself notice is done without the usual joking or quarrelling or drinking of good healths. Well, then, that also is right. Where is Thora?”
“She is going to a lecture this afternoon to be given by the Archdeacon Spens to the young girls, and she is preparing for it.” And as these words were uttered, Thora entered the room. She was dressed for the storm outside, and wore the hood of her cloak drawn well over her hair; in her hands were a pair of her father’s slippers.
“For thee I brought them,” she said, as she held them out to Vedder. “I heard thy voice, and I was sure thy feet would be wet. See, then, I have brought thee my father’s slippers. He would like thee to wear them––so would I.”
“I will not wear them, Thora. I will not stand in any man’s shoes but my own. It is an unchancy, unlucky thing to do. Thanks be to thee, but I will keep my own standing, wet or dry. Look to that 35 rule for thyself, and remember what I say. Let me see if thou art well shod.”
Thora laughed, stood straight up, and drew her dress taut, and put forward two small feet, trigly protected by high-laced boots. Then, looking at her mother, she asked: “Are the boots sufficient, or shall I wear over them my French clogs?”
Vedder answered her question. “The clogs are not necessary,” he said. “The rain runs off as fast as it falls. Thy boots are all such trifling feet can carry. What can women do on this hard world-road with such impediments as French clogs over English boots?”
“Mr. Vedder, they will do whatever they want to do; and they will go wherever they want to go; and they will walk in their own shoes, and work in their own shoes, and be well satisfied with them.”
“Thora, I am sorry I was born in the last century. If I had waited for about fifty years I would have been in proper time to marry thee.”
“Perhaps.”
“Yes; for I would not have let a woman so fair and good as thou art go out of my family. We should have been man and wife. That would certainly have happened.”
36
“If two had been willing, it might have been. Now our talk must end; the Archdeacon likes not a late comer;” and with this remark, and a beaming smile, she went away.
Then there was a silence, full of words longing to be spoken; but Rahal Ragnor was a prudent woman, and she sighed and sewed and left Vedder to open the conversation. He looked at her a little impatiently for a few moments, then he asked:
“To what port has thy son Boris sailed?”
“Boris intends to go to Leith, if wind and water let him do so.”
“Boris is not asking wind and water about his affairs. There is a question I know not how to answer. I am wanting thy help.”
“If that be so, speak thy mind to me.”
“I want a few words of advice about a woman.”
“Is that woman thy granddaughter, Sunna?”
“A right guess thou hast made.”
“Then I would rather not speak of her.”
“Thy reason? What is it?”
“She is too clever for a simple woman like me. I have not two faces. I cannot make the same words mean two distinct and separate things. 37 Sunna has all thy self-wisdom, but she has not thy true heart and thy wise tongue.”
“Listen to me! Things have come to this––Boris has made love to Sunna in the face of all Kirkwall. He has done this for more than a year. Then for two weeks before he left for Leith he came not near my house, and if he met Sunna in any friend’s house he was no longer her lover. What is the meaning of this? My girl is unhappy and angry, and I myself am far from being satisfied; thou tell, what is wrong between them?”
“I would prefer neither to help nor hinder thee in this matter. There is a broad way between these two ways, that I am minded to take. It will be better for me to do so, and perhaps better for thee also.”
“I thought I could count on thee for my friend. Bare is a man’s back without friends behind it! In thee I trusted. While I feared and doubted, I thought, ‘If worse comes I will go at once to Rahal Ragnor’––Thou hast failed me.”
“Say not that––my old, dear friend! It is beyond truth. What I know I told to my husband; and I asked him if it would be kind and well to tell thee, and he said to me: ‘Be not a bearer of ill 38 news to Vedder. Little can thou trust any evil report; few people are spoken of better than they deserve.’ Then I gave counsel to myself, thus: Conall has four dear daughters, he knows. Conall loves his old friend Vedder; if he thought to interfere was right, he would advise Vedder to interfere or he would interfere for him, and my wish was to spare thee the sorrow that comes from women’s tongues. I was also sure that if the news was true, it would find thee out––if not true, why should Rahal Ragnor sow seeds of suspicion and ill-will? Is Sunna disobedient to thee?”
“She is something worse––she deceives me. Her name is mixed up with some report––I know not what. No one loves me well enough to tell me what is wrong.”
“Well, then, thou art more feared than loved. Few know thee well enough to risk thy anger and all know that Norsemen are bitter cruel to those who dare to say that one hair of their women is out of its place. Who, then, would dare to say this or that about thy granddaughter?”
“Rahal Ragnor could speak safely to me.”
Then there was silence for a few moments and Rahal sat with her doubled-up left hand against her lips, gazing out of the window. Vedder did 39 not disturb her. He waited patiently until she said:
“If I tell thee what was told me, wilt thou visit the story upon my husband, or myself, or any of my children?”
Vedder took a signet ring from his finger and kissed it. “Rahal,” he said, “I have kissed this ring of my fathers to seal the promise I shall make thee. If thou wilt give me thy confidence in this matter of Sunna Vedder, it shall be for thy good, and for the good of thy husband, and for the good of all thy children, as far as Adam Vedder can make it so.”
“I ask a special promise for my son Boris, for he is concerned in this matter.”
“Boris can take good care of Boris: nevertheless, I promise thee that I will not say or look or do, with hands or tongue, anything that will injure, or even annoy, Boris Ragnor. Unto the end of my life, I promise this. What may come after, I know not. If there should be a wrong done, we will fight it out elsewhere.”
“Thy words are sufficient. Listen, then! There is a family, in the newest and best part of the town, called McLeod. They are yet strange here. They are Highland Scotch. Many say 40 they are Roman Catholics. They sing Jacobite songs, and they go not to any church. They have opened a great trading route; and they have brought many new customs and new ideas with them. A certain class of our people make much